Believe it or not, I’d never seen a guide dog for the blind in Colombia until this week when a young man got on the metro led by his black labrador.

Everybody stared, enchanted, and some people had big grins on their faces. The dog settled down right in front of me and at one point, sniffed my hand, but I very correctly didn’t pat him because I knew he was working.

As the blind man got off, someone behind him gestured to the young policeman on the platform to come and help him (a nice act of solidarity, I thought) but man and dog chose their direction and walked confidently away.